Mount ancient PATA disk (from a 386) to restore files (ATA 1, or older)

I have a PATA disk from a 386 laptop (1995?) which I would like to get files off.

It is a Seagate 9096A, and is working. Using the old laptop is not possible.

I have tried a USB - 2.5" PATA adapter, but it failed to properly interface with the drive. In linux, it reported the size as 0xffffffff (2000 GB!), and in Windows XP, it failed to show up in Drive Management. A dd from the disk failed, and tried to create a 2TB file.

I have tried it in a Pentium-M (2005?) laptop, but it is not recognised by the BIOS.

Any suggestions? Why isn't it working? I assume that the PATA / IDE instruction set has changed since then.

Edit: To future readers; it seems that the laptop BIOSs didn't support old IDE standard versions, and the drive in question comes from the early days of IDE standardisation. Fortunately, it worked with an adapter, see the Answer for details.

Most 2.5" adapters can be connected backwards, did you try it both ways? It probably is the usb chipset that has issues with it, use a 2.5 to 3.5 pata adapter, then connect it directly to the motherboard of a desktop with a IDE cable, take the usb chip out of the equation.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812203012

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